Hello Everyone,
A friend and colleague of mine, Mary Catherine, is a Palliative Care Advanced Practice Nurse. She has a mantra that I feel is the very thing that might help us get started on our journey together. Her mantra is this:
"I can't care for someone if I don't care about them. And I can't care about them unless I know them. And I can't know them unless I'm willing to let them know me." M.C. Rilett
"I can't care for someone if I don't care about them. And I can't care about them unless I know them. And I can't know them unless I'm willing to let them know me." M.C. Rilett
We can't care about our Mother, Earth, unless we get to know her again and unless we welcome her back into our lives. We can reuse, reduce and recycle all we want, but if we don't do it with an awareness of and an appreciation for the mysterious ways and gifting of Earth, we will continue to act as orphans. Earth speaks to us in a language that we understood as children. By allowing ourselves a small moment of time each day to stop and pay attention, we can begin again a conversation with the Earth.
Mindful
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
Mary Oliver
(Why I Wake Early)
Mary Oliver
(Why I Wake Early)
This Week's Suggestion:
Each morning and evening, take a moment to look up into the sky and just breathe. Notice the variety of cloud formations and how the weather changes as the clouds change. Notice what happens to the birds with the change of weather and the time of day. Can you identify horsetail or cirrus clouds? What about a mackerel sky? Or, do you see a fine veil of cloud covering the sky? Watch the moon tonight wax into a full moon tomorrow night and then begin to wane. What way does the moon wax? What way does the moon wane? While looking at the sky, what do you hear? Can you smell a faint scent of flowers, pine needles or rain? How does it feel to be outside looking up at the sky?
Get To Know Your Neighbours:
The male American Goldfinch (often referred to as a wild canary) changes his distinctive summer plumage of a bright yellow body with black on his head, wings and tail to the female-like winter colours of a dull grey-olive body with blackish wings and obvious black ba
rs at the shoulders. You can still recognize the male in the fall and winter as he always has remnants of his summer attire - look for his white rump patch just above his tail and a yellow bar at his shoulder. Goldfinch are most often seen in small flocks, and winter around the Great Lakes, along the St. Lawrence and into Nova Scotia, in gardens, along roadsides and in weedy fields. They twitter and chirp as they fly in an up-and-down pattern, landing on tips of pine trees, thistles and seed heads. Goldfinch will visit feeders that have nyger seed. They like suet, too, in the winter.
A Fact Or Two:
1.4 million species of plants and animals have been found on Earth, so far. 250,000 are plants, 750,000 are insects, about 41,00 are vertebrates and the rest of the species are microorganisms, fungi and invertebrates like starfish, sponges, worms and squid.
Of the vertebrates, 25,000 species are fish, 9,000 are birds, 4000 are reptiles, 3,500 are amphibians and 4,300 are mammals. We are, of course, one of the mammal species in a group of 220 species called primates - along with gorillas and chimpanzees.
What Can I Do?:
Try eating local. Eating locally grown foods helps reduce the impact your diet has on climate change. A typical North American meal travels over 4,000 km from field to fork, but a locally grown meal typically travels less than 100 km. Eating locally whenever you can, diverts a lot of green house gas emissions from the atmosphere and the food will be fresher, healthier and often, much cheaper. If you live in Ontario, visit: http://www.greenbeltfresh.ca/ for more information and Community Information Centres have maps of where to buy local food even during the winter. Perhaps, you can let me know of other resources available for Ontario and other provinces, as well as for the USA. Let's share the information.
Media:
On the Internet: http://www.greenlivingonline.com/
Books: The Daily Planet for Cool Ideas by Jay Ingram
Each morning and evening, take a moment to look up into the sky and just breathe. Notice the variety of cloud formations and how the weather changes as the clouds change. Notice what happens to the birds with the change of weather and the time of day. Can you identify horsetail or cirrus clouds? What about a mackerel sky? Or, do you see a fine veil of cloud covering the sky? Watch the moon tonight wax into a full moon tomorrow night and then begin to wane. What way does the moon wax? What way does the moon wane? While looking at the sky, what do you hear? Can you smell a faint scent of flowers, pine needles or rain? How does it feel to be outside looking up at the sky?
Get To Know Your Neighbours:
The male American Goldfinch (often referred to as a wild canary) changes his distinctive summer plumage of a bright yellow body with black on his head, wings and tail to the female-like winter colours of a dull grey-olive body with blackish wings and obvious black ba
rs at the shoulders. You can still recognize the male in the fall and winter as he always has remnants of his summer attire - look for his white rump patch just above his tail and a yellow bar at his shoulder. Goldfinch are most often seen in small flocks, and winter around the Great Lakes, along the St. Lawrence and into Nova Scotia, in gardens, along roadsides and in weedy fields. They twitter and chirp as they fly in an up-and-down pattern, landing on tips of pine trees, thistles and seed heads. Goldfinch will visit feeders that have nyger seed. They like suet, too, in the winter.A Fact Or Two:
1.4 million species of plants and animals have been found on Earth, so far. 250,000 are plants, 750,000 are insects, about 41,00 are vertebrates and the rest of the species are microorganisms, fungi and invertebrates like starfish, sponges, worms and squid.
Of the vertebrates, 25,000 species are fish, 9,000 are birds, 4000 are reptiles, 3,500 are amphibians and 4,300 are mammals. We are, of course, one of the mammal species in a group of 220 species called primates - along with gorillas and chimpanzees.
What Can I Do?:
Try eating local. Eating locally grown foods helps reduce the impact your diet has on climate change. A typical North American meal travels over 4,000 km from field to fork, but a locally grown meal typically travels less than 100 km. Eating locally whenever you can, diverts a lot of green house gas emissions from the atmosphere and the food will be fresher, healthier and often, much cheaper. If you live in Ontario, visit: http://www.greenbeltfresh.ca/ for more information and Community Information Centres have maps of where to buy local food even during the winter. Perhaps, you can let me know of other resources available for Ontario and other provinces, as well as for the USA. Let's share the information.
Media:
On the Internet: http://www.greenlivingonline.com/
Books: The Daily Planet for Cool Ideas by Jay Ingram
Do you have internet sites, books, videos, films suggestions to share with us?
I hope you all had a very good Thanksgiving. As I look out my window, the horsetail clouds are a lovely soft pink in a pure blue sky as the almost full moon rises in the south-east. I thank you for joining me and I am thankful for all the beauty that surrounds us. "See" you next weekend.
maureen
I hope you all had a very good Thanksgiving. As I look out my window, the horsetail clouds are a lovely soft pink in a pure blue sky as the almost full moon rises in the south-east. I thank you for joining me and I am thankful for all the beauty that surrounds us. "See" you next weekend.
maureen
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